Hi! I’ve been missing you guys, but life is just crazy-to-the-town lately. We’re trying to be flexible and roll with it, but man, sometimes it’s just hard. I don’t even know where I left off here on our kindness advent. I really like to give you guys ideas to use or change or adjust for your own families. We were suppose to paint rocks and leave them at the park/sidewalks one day. The kids love this one. Instead of rocks, this year I asked my FIL to cut some slices of wood for the kids to paint. I might never go back to rocks again. So crazy cute.

The kids wrote Christmasy notes one day, taped gift cards to the back and then left them in shopping carts. I loved this one because they did it all and when it was time to drop them in carts I seriously just drove around the parking lot, opened the van door and children would hop in and out doing their drop offs.

We took Josh’s dad…aka Big Daddy…out to the movies. Big Daddy is always treating everyone else so we treated him. And let me just say how flippin’ fantastic the new Star Wars is!!!! You guys, if you have not seen it yet, oh my. It’s crazy crazy good. Everyone loved it…big and small. We then proceeded to talk about the movie for hours after it was over. Ahhhhhh, we all want to see it again.

Tonight we’re doing our surprise yard inflatable. Josh Kelley had a stroke of genius last year when he added this to our list. It has become a fast favorite. Last year they chose a 7ft tall polar bear, but this year then went smaller. Santa Yoda…yes, please. They are super pumped.

Tomorrow we are buying someone’s lunch.

We’ve been taking the kids on solo dates to do their shopping for their siblings. Last year Harper was the only one who chose me. Wah wah. This year Hudson is the only one who chose me. Clearly Josh Kelley is a fan favorite. Hudson is also the only kid who picked breakfast and a Krispy Kreme breakfast at that. Not a bad deal on my part. Oh man I like that kid.

Our shopping is all done. Kids are wrapping presents and we still have a few to wrap as well. I also have 2 things left to make…I do this every year. Procrastination is my game. I can’t believe Christmas is almost here. Hope you’re ready.

Our kindness advent it still moving along. Tuesday we left a note and treat for our trash man. We’ve done this every year and this year the big kids decided to skip the whole angst of whether or not he would see it or dump it and just run it out to him themselves. And then it was time for school and he still had not come by. So I waited with the two littles. Amon started screaming and cheering when he picked up the treat. Success.

Yesterday we left a note and treat for our mailman. We’ve got some amazing people in our lives who are just doing their job well and kind and with joy. A kid’s thank you note, cookies and a Cracker Barrel gift card can simply say “Thank you”.

Today we took treats and goodies to our pediatrician’s office. This one always makes me a tad emotional and lately I’ve been a lost cause anyways. Our doctors and nurses and administration always take such great care of all our kids, but I always think about Amon and his special heart. Geez. Being kind and nice can have such an impact on someone’s life. Choosing to be compassionate and empathetic can change the world. This special office has done all of that. Our pediatrician knew Mom and still talks about her. “I was thinking about your mom just this morning. She always did ______” Do you know what that does for one’s heart?!?! Amazing things. We are crazy blessed with accessible health care and good, kind and caring professionals who look after us.

The past 7 days has been wild for us. We’re sitting with a lot of big emotions and feelings lately and sometimes you have to simply hold on. We’re adjusting back into a family of 7. Things are just hard and complicated sometimes. I have a thousand thoughts and feelings I have sat down multiple times to type and then I just close my computer because I couldn’t quite make sense of everything. And I still can’t. I thought “How do I connect 5000 thoughts that somehow make it into my head and heart and mull around all together?” I still don’t know so I’m just going to keep typing.

*I’ve decided I’m a mess. And our family is a mess. And if I had to guess you might be a mess too…maybe. I think about the disaster I turn into everyday. Sin after sin after sin. I get so pissed off about things I really should be giving compassion and mercy and grace to. I put my sins on repeat and continue to fall on my face. I let my pride win and I think I have it all figured out. I think my way is the best way and don’t even think about offering me a different route. I think I know better than Jesus most days. Josh Kelley gets my worst. My kids get my worst. I find myself holding tight to grace when it should fall freely from my hands because I am #1 in line who needs it desperately. You guys I’ve got nothing figured out and every night I think, “Okay God. Let’s give this another go tomorrow.”

*God has been teaching me about how valuable and important people’s stories are. For over a year now I’ve been trying to lean into people’s stories. I can be so quick to judge, but when I shove my know-it-all-self aside and choose to listen and be curious and invest, sometimes people share and it’s one of the greatest honors ever. I then begin to understand others and their lives and how they arrived to the place where they are. I begin to see how impactful our stories are on others and who we are now and who we are becoming. Our stories shape and mold us into who we are…they are valuable and deserve a listening ear and an empathetic heart. It’s easy to make judgments from the outside…from the surface of what I think I know, but when I get to digging and people share, I get a glimpse into the truth of people’s hearts and lives. I keep thinking about how I want my own heart and story to be handled by others, so in turn, how will I respond and handle the stories of others who share with me. I can’t help but feel this is such a crucial decision…I want to be so careful.

*I sat with a friend for hours yesterday talking about really hard things. This life is just damn hard. Sometimes I think “Why God? Why all that? Why did you think they we’re strong enough to handle that mess?” I don’t give Him the credit He deserves and I certainly question His judgement. I forget we can do crazy hard things because He lives in us. I’m right we aren’t strong enough, but Christ is. He can do immeasurably more than we ever imagined. He brings beauty from the ashes. He takes our broken selves and makes something incredible. He does what only He can do. This world makes zero sense sometimes. None. Hebrews has been spot on for me lately. Just word after word after word….each time just stabbing my heart. It’s good you guys.

Hebrews 8:9 “…when I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt.”

This verse captured me immediately. It spoke to the mess I am and the mess everyone else is too. The Creator of the world…God Himself…will take us by the hand and lead us out of our mess. It makes me weepy and thankful and humbled. He comes into our mess, into our brokenness, into our sadness, into our pride, into our judgment, into our hate, into our bitterness, into our sin, into our shortcomings…into anything we can offer up…He is not scared or too good or afraid of exactly as we are. I am crazy thankful I don’t have to fix myself or clean myself up for Him because I would be in a constant whirlpool…I would never get there and so, instead He comes right down into my mess with me and grabs me by the hand. Geez. What a good good God He is.

*I am for sure an emotional mess lately. I want to claim it’s the holidays, but let’s be real, it’s pretty much all the time. I have bounced between rock hard and soft mush my entire life and currently I am in a perpetual soft mush emotional state. I recently cleaned out my office and had a giant pile of stuff I wanted to get rid of. I let friends and family pilfer through it and then donated what was left. My friend Ashley stopped by one day…she’s a teacher and a lover of junk…so I told her to come look though my pile. She took a few things…one being a gallon ziplock bag of wooden thread spools I had covered in different fabrics. I’m not one to hold onto to things. I like to think of myself as a minimalist, but for over three years I had held onto those wooden spools because I had sat by Amon’s hospital bed and tried to busy my hands by covering each spool in brightly covered fabric as machines beeped around me and fear and grief had taken a tight grip on my heart over Amon’s heart and the loss of mom. I was in the bank drive-thru today when she sent me this picture.

She took those wooden spools and made this beautiful wreath for her friend who is a high school sewing teacher. It made me cry like a giant baby…it made her friend cry too. I could not get over how amazing it was and how amazing Ashley is. The simple yet astounding thoughtfulness and love she had put into this wreath made my heart swell. It’s a testimate to Ashely’s heart and her kindness. She’s one of the good ones. And I know so many kind people just like her. It blew me away. I ask God all the time to show me His goodness and I found it today in Ashely’s simple love and kindness for her friend.

So that’s the state of my mind and heart currently. It’s all over the place. A mess like I said. And it’s okay to be a mess. Jesus makes it okay. What a God we serve who takes us just as we are, meets us in our mess and then uses us despite ourselves. I might not understand it all and I might question the fire out of God, but how comforting it is to know He not only is okay with me coming to Him just as I am, but that He is there and loves me so fiercely.

Last Friday we had the craziest day. Amon and I ended up at the courthouse at 10am and didn’t get home until almost 5. The craziest, wildest, emotional kind of day. That alone knocked out our kindness advent for the day which was shopping for a family for Christmas. Life happens and you just have to roll along with it.

Saturday we recouped. The kids were having friends spend the night so everyone got in on the kindness. We love Redbox and love to share Redbox movies with others. You can buy Redbox gift cards or just rental codes on their website which is super fun. In the past we have done a Redbox bucket/bag with treats and a gift card, but this year we bought several codes, printed them off and then drove around to all our local Redboxes. Each kiddo got to either tape a code to an empty machine or hand a code to someone waiting in line. They loved it. This is the only picture I snagged and Hudson Kelley absolutely perplexes my mind. I have no clue what he is doing. Zero, but he is wearing a Santa hat.

Yesterday we handed out Christmas books to kiddos shopping in a store and we also got in our shopping for a family we missed on Friday. One Target, two birds. #cornball The kids are definitely bolder and braver this year with their words. In the past I have had to do a lot of explaining on their behalf, but this year they are using their words to explain what they are doing and why. I love it! We do still have to step in sometimes or yell a Merry Christmas so people aren’t crazy creeped by us, but definitely less than any other year.

Tip for book purchasing: I’m a huge Scholastic book fan. They typically have amazing prices and they do so much for teachers. They also have huge warehouse sales where all books are 50-80% off. You can check out their website and see if one is near you. I almost always go to their warehouse sale to snag our Christmas books we give out, but the past two years I’ve ordered from our classroom teachers. Their teachers get points and free books when kiddos order so I didn’t mind the extra dollars when I know our teachers are benefitting. The kids still got to choose the books, I did not have to leave our house and all the books came home in Solomon’s backpack 🙂 All I do is win, win, win no matter what! #namethatsong

For our kindness today we are handing out candy canes. In the past when this has been picked we go to our community center and hand them out there. This year all the kids decided they wanted to take them to school for their classmates. I have to say I love how into this they are. They are taking ownership of their kindness and thinking about it so who am I to argue when they throw a new idea out there. Plus they adore their classmates and I’m so glad they want to love on them too.

Tomorrow we are leaving a treat for our trash guy. This is always our most suspenseful one…everyone waits on pins and needles…will it go in the trash or will he see it!?!?!? For the record, we have done this one every year so we are currently 4 for 4 on him seeing the treat and not dumping it.

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In other news I wanted to share two Christmas favorites today: One being my favorite gift we’re giving and two a favorite gift wrap.

We are Santa believers…not that he’s watching us and sees us when we’re sleeping because that kind of creeps me out, but we love the magic and whimsy and fun of Santa so our kids are still believers at this point. They also are fully aware lots of kids and families do not do Santa. We’re really big on “different strokes for different folks” around our house…no family is just like us and that is a-okay. So they know some kids get presents from their parents/guardians/whoever.

Our family does 3 gifts and some treats in their stockings. They make their little lists…Sol put his in the mailbox, Hudson put his in his stocking and Harper just kept hers this year. Picking gifts for them is crazy fun. We try and keep things super reasonable because A) There are 4 of them and that can get quite expensive and B) They just don’t need anything.

I am super excited about one of Harper’s gifts this year…a full on personal mail kit. This kid writes letters and sends mail like there’s no tomorrow. I cannot say enough how much I adore this about her and this gift is a bit of a splurge and I am totally cool with it. Here’s what I ended up with: personalized stationary, address stamp, mini pens, stamps, mini stapler and 2 rolls of washi tape all in a cute box.

Mini Swingline Stapler (found at Kroger of all places…on sale for $1.99 but also saw at Target)

Two rolls of washi tape from Joanns. $3.99 each, but use those coupons party people. I refuse to pay full price for anything at a craft store with all the coupons available. And Joanns will accept Hobby Lobby and Michaels coupons.

And a cute little box to hold it all from Hobby Lobby…again, use those coupons!

Harper is going to crazy love this. She’s almost nine now and her gifts are starting to sway towards older kid which makes me miss her little days, but crazy love her current days. I mean, you guys, she asked for a cd player…like a boom box. God love her. And thank you HHGregg for still carrying “boom boxes” hahahahaha.

And here’s my current favorite Christmas wrapping idea…paper stockings. So easy. So cute. So festive. I love to use these for teacher gifts and gift cards, etc.

I usually use all brown craft paper, but this year I made one side craft paper and the other side wrapping paper. I drew out a stocking design big enough to hold our goodies, traced, cut, sewed the two pieces together, decorated and sewed them shut. Harper and I did these together while the boys were mountain biking Sunday afternoon.

Hope your Monday is off to a great start. Here’s to another grand week.

1. I’ve had some unplanned solo time with Hudson lately. This is very rare. We did things like play mancala, look at legos on the interwebs, watch the lego movie…he’s kind of lego crazy. I told him the other day while at his 7 year check up that I was going to ask the doctor if I should be concerned about his love of legos. He is the child who was born with a furrowed brow…his brain thinks through everything and leans toward worry. He looked at me with his furrowed brow and said, “Are you really worried about me? I do think about Legos a lot. Is that normal?” Sweet thing.

2. I bailed on Christmas cards this year. We like to keep this season relatively not crazy busy and Christmas cards are always daunting to me…so this year I nixed them. And the world is still spinning. Shocker right?!?! But for your viewing pleasure here is the picture I thought would be wildly funny to send to people.

Merry Awkward Christmas! You have my full permission to use this for your screen saver. #yourewelcome

4. Josh Kelley and I had a rare few hours solo the other night. We went to the gym and then ate BBQ nachos. Speaking of BBQ nachos, I have officially found THE.BEST.BBQ.NACHOS.EVER!!!! Edleys wins the top BBQ nachos award. I can’t even talk about it…makes me weepy. Eat them and then email me with all the love that has built up in your heart because of their sheer goodness…then buy me a plate of them to say “thank you”.

5. Amon has become a bed hopper. In the morning when he gets up he moves from bed to bed to bed. He likes some snuggles in the morning. The other morning I heard him climbing up into Harper’s top bunk and heard her say, “Hey there my big boy.” Geez. They are ridiculous together.

6. Our kindness advent yesterday was taking cookies to our police and fire station. Today we are taking a treat to the salvation army bell ringer at our local grocery store. And tomorrow we are buying Christmas for a family.

7. And I still have plenty of things for sale if you need a last minute Christmas gift. I’m shipping out asap so things have plenty of time to arrive before Christmas. Check out available items HERE.

Our kindness advent led us to the library yesterday. The kids made bookmarks and then left them in books on the library shelves in the kids area. We added this activity last year and the kids were quick to add this one again this year when they were narrowing down our kindness for this December. In the past I’ve been ahead of the game a bit…getting them to prepare the day before, but this year we’re kind of doing most everything the same day. This has actually made things better in my opinion…somewhat slower and easier. So yesterday after school they crafted all their bookmarks…paper, stickers, markers, pompoms, hole punch and ribbons…and then we headed to the library after dinner. The pompoms were in heavy rotation and there was one hot glue gun casualty, but we all survived.

Today we are taking cookies to the fire and police department down our street. This is when all those boxes of Otis Spunkmeyer cookies we purchased to support our school come in handy.

And tomorrow we are taking a special treat to a Salvation Army bell ringer.

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It’s been almost 3 weeks since we took our foster daughter home. Over the past weeks our family has done a lot of talking about our role as a foster family. I’ve done a lot of thought processing and thinking about all those big feelings. Lots of friends and family have asked how we’re doing and the truth is we’re doing good. We’ve gotten to see her and her parents several times. Babysitting and snuggles in church. There’s even a sleepover planned for this week which we’re all super excited about.

When I received the official word she would be going home I immediately broke down into tears and proceeded to cry on and off the entire day. This completely surprised me because I felt like we had gone to great lengths to continually remind ourselves and our kiddos of what the goal at hand was and that was reunification. I had lots of feelings that popped up like “Well now what about us? What are we to do now?” I kind of felt like someone owed us a shoulder to cry on or something. I was thinking about myself and how I felt instead of them and how they felt. I realized how selfish I was being…real honest feelings for sure, but selfish ones. From the beginning…before she was even placed in our home…our entire family had been praying for reunification. I cannot even count the number of prayers I heard come from our children’s mouths asking God to allow her to go home. And in my moments of “what about me” I was missing the miracle.

Over the 10 months we formed a relationship and deep love for her parents and we all so wanted them to succeed…to flourish…to make it. We were their #1 cheerleaders because everyone deserves to have someone cheering them on and telling them they can absolutely do it! I told our kids what an honor and privilege we have getting to see God answer a prayer in the manner in which we had been petitioning Him for over a year. We were seeing Him bring about restoration and redemption in only a way He could and we got front row seats.

We moved from feelings of “what about us and our feelings” to a manner of “wow, look what God has done.” And it was quite amazing to move between those two big emotions. We miss her for sure and we still pray for her and her family everyday. We still talk about her daily. We didn’t want it to be a “goodbye, so long and good luck” moment, but a “you can do this, we’re not going anywhere and we’re here for you” moment.

When we all loaded up in the car…all 7 of us…to take her home that night, Josh Kelley and I had already prepped everyone for a quick drop off. A non-intrusive drop off. I tend to be the person who would want to go in and unpack all her things and have “my moment” with her, but Josh had reminded me we needed to respect their space and their moment with her. They had worked so hard and she was theirs. And he was right.

Being a foster parent has taught me a great deal of putting myself in the other person’s shoes…it’s constantly on the brain when you are caring for someone else’s child and you know they are missing the moments you are having with their kiddo. I know we have so much to learn still, but we’ve definitely learned how important it is to be respectful of the other party involved. They are real people with real hurts and struggles and hurdles to overcome just like us. They are no different than us at all and we are all in this together.

So now we wait. We are back on the list and already praying for the next sweet kid and their family who we’ll get the privilege of meeting and loving on like crazy.

Hey hey guys! Jumping right to it…first, I loved reading about people’s light choices. Totally was cracking up at some of your responses and the amount of squirrel problems some of you have. Josh Kelley is the Christmas person around our house…he does it all…and this year he ventured into house lights. They are mild and simple, but if he had all the resources in the world, I feel confident we would be total Griswold style.

On Sunday our kindness advent was an ornament delivery. We added this one last year and just loved it. We bought cheap paper mache’ ornaments from Joanns last year and the kiddos painted them. This year we wanted to do a little something different.

I’ve had a bag of old scrabble tiles for about 4 years now. I use them for varying little projects and thought the kids would love to use them to make ornaments. This project was crazy simple.

Here’s what you will need:

scrabble tiles

hot glue gun

popsicle sticks

ribbon

That’s it!!!

Our big kids can use a hot glue gun, but not so much Amon. He can be quite clumsy and quite untrustworthy 🙂

Hudson wanted to give away an ornament he painted at church, so Harper and Sol were the only ones really doing any new making and I helped Amon. Everyone chose their recipient(s) & words and then started pulling all their letters they needed. From there the steps are super simple.

*First, we hot glued the tiles together on the sides.

*Second, we hot glued a popsicle stick to the back for extra support.

Third, we hot glued a ribbon for hanging.

Crazy simple! The end.

For today’s kindness advent we are making bookmarks and leaving them in books at the library. Tomorrow we are taking baked goods to the police and fire station. Hudson insisted we do this one this year. Food is part of his love language.

I posted on Saturday which is completely not my norm. So in case you missed it today is one last giveaway. I have a crazy kind family and my cousin Emily wanted to support Timbali Crafts, but wanted me to give it away instead. So here I am…bearing Timbali goodies.

Up for grabs is one of their shoulder bags and zipper pouches. Both will go to one winner.

3 ways to enter:

1: Leave a comment…any comment will do. Maybe share if you are a house Christmas lights kind of person or no…and if you are is it mild or full on Clark Griswold.

In case some of you missed it, Sasquatch Design Society is selling new baseball tees for Ngungwane’s Garden Fund. Once it is funded they will use proceeds from the tees to buy supplies for the carepoint which we will deliver next year on our trip. You can get your baseball tee HERE.

Speaking of trip, we are still looking for people to join our Swaziland, Africa trip next May 29-June 8. If you want to go, you’re in! All are welcome. Email me at pitterpatterart at gmail dot com or message me HERE if you are interested.

Saturday and Sunday’s kindness advent was surprise chalk art and ornament drop. The big kids were super sneaky and quiet while they chalked up a driveway. Hudson was pretty much quietly freakin’ out to himself the whole time about the possibility of being arrested. He has the gift of worry 🙂 Super grainy picture with redness from our car break lights, but documentation was needed.

The ornament delivery is pretty new. We added this one last year and the kids loved it. This year we used paint, glue, ribbon and old scrabble tiles. Too much fun! And we forgot to deliver one ornament so that is on my to-do list for today.

Today we are delivering some school supplies to kiddo’s classrooms…largely of the snack variety because their teachers provide snack every day for the whole class. Makes me gush! Have I mentioned I love their school and their sweet teachers?!?!?!

I hope you guys enjoyed all the giveaways this week. I loved reading all your comments…some of which made me laugh out loud, feel a tad happy/weepy and made me salivate….brownies with peppermint ice-cream and hot fudge…hold up! Hopefully you got a few ideas for Christmas presents and will shop around some of my favorite purchase with purpose companies like Noonday Collection and Timbali Crafts. Which leads me to number 2…

2. I have amazing family. Family which are givers too. Thursday my sweet cousin Emily sent me a text and said she wanted to buy some Timbali, but didn’t really need anything. So because she is crazy kind she sent me some money, I picked items out and Monday we’ll have another giveaway. This bag makes me all kinds of swoony. So so gorgeous. Thank you Emily…you know you make my heart want to burst! Check back Monday.

3. Sasquatch Design Company…Meagan, Nick and Marcie…are at it again and just in time for Christmas. We are currently trying to raise money for a garden to be put in at the Ngungwane carepoint. You can make your tax deductible donation HERE. Or you can buy a sweet baseball tee.

Remember when I asked you to vote for Nick’s design in the Design the Good contest…well he actually won and yet, not. He had the most votes by a good margin…well over 1000…but the judges didn’t choose his design. After quite a bit of angst and toil basically it came down to companies being shady and not up front and lots of tiny print loop holes. It made me feel super yucky I asked you guys to vote, but we can’t make people choose honestly and integrity. So Nick and Sasquatch Design decided to print the tees themselves and give all the profits to the Ngungwane garden fund. If we reach the goal they are going to use the money to buy supplies for Ngungwane. Crazy awesome again. I know some good hearted people. You can purchase your tee HERE.

And 4. Yesterday our kindness advent was share sonic happy hour. There was some concern about our tape not holding up so hence the overload of washi tape…just in case 🙂 Kids crack me up. Our kindness advent for today is surprise chalk art. So fun!

And tomorrow we are crafting up some handmade ornaments and delivering them.